BOTH SIDES ‘SHOULD BE READY’ FOR WAR OVER GARABAGH
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
April 12 2006
Baku, April 11, AssA-Irada
The Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian has said Azerbaijan and
Armenia should be prepared for a possible resumption of hostilities
over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh.
“Both countries’ defense ministries should be ready for the launch
of military action either tomorrow, or in two days,” he said.
The conflicting sides failed to agree upon the issues of principle
during the negotiations between Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Robert
Kocharian in Rambouillet, France in February, which was followed by
Azerbaijan’s threats to use force to liberate its territories from
under occupation.
As for the ceasefire violations on the frontline that have become
frequent of late, Sarkisian regarded this as “natural”.
“The gunshots have always been heard and there is no difference where
they are fired from,” the Armenian minister alleged.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SHAKHIDS APPEAR IN AZERBAIJAN: IMPOVERISHMENT AND THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM OF KARABAKH TRANSFORM THE COUNTRY INTO A BRIDGEHEAD FOR RADICAL ISLAM
by Sokhbet Mamedov
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 10, 2006, p. 10
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
April 12, 2006 Wednesday
ACTIVIZATION OF RADICAL RELIGIOUS AND TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS IN
AZERBAIJAN: ANALYSIS; Activization of radical religious and terrorist
organizations in Azerbaijan: analysis.
National Security Minister of Azerbaijan Eldar Makhmudov made
a sensational statement the other day. Speaking of successes of
Azerbaijani secret services (they celebrated their 87th anniversary not
long ago), Makhmudov said, “We are fairly experienced in dealing with
radical religious and terrorist organizations, but we were shocked by
the reports that Al-Qaeda Caucasus, a terrorist group we liquidated,
intended to recruit Azerbaijani girls into the shakhid.”
According to the minister, as recently as five years ago most
terrorists arrested in Azerbaijan were on their way to other countries
or else they were using the territory of Azerbaijan to organize
terrorist acts elsewhere. These days, they plan terrorist acts in
Azerbaijan itself – either on their own or acting on orders from
international terrorist organizations.
Secret services encounter religious-extremist groups “bent on toppling
the secular democratic regime in the country and on having Azerbaijan
quit the international counter-terrorism coalition” more and more
frequently nowadays. Activization of radical religious and terrorist
groups in Azerbaijan is ascribed to its convenient location, major
international projects under way on its territory, existence of a
great deal of vital objects of infrastructure and transport, and to
some other factors. All of that transformed Azerbaijan into an arena
of a vicious struggle between different Islamic trends and schools –
Arab, Turkish, and Iranian. All of that generates considerable problems
for the authorities to handle.
The worst threat is posed by the forces and circles proliferating
Islamic fundamentalism in the republic. Missionaries from Arab
countries (particularly from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey)
are extremely active. The nucleus of the cells of extremists they
establish in Azerbaijan comprises young locals 20 to 25 years from
impoverished families, students of theology, and the unemployed.
These missionaries offer local youths free religious education in
Islamic countries. This practice is used to import the newly acquired
knowledge and views to Azerbaijan.
Just like in the Russian Caucasus, the Wahhabi are particularly
radical in Azerbaijan where they amass around all sorts of charity
foundations, religious establishments, and media outlets. According
to some estimates, the Wahhabi already number more than 25,000 men.
This Islamic trend is predominant in the northern regions of
Azerbaijan on the border with Russia, the ones with the mostly Sunni
population. Local newspapers call the Abu-Bekir, a mosque built with
money from Saudi sponsors, the center of Wahhabi in Baku. A great
deal of the believers who regularly attend the mosque are citizens
of Russia – ethnic Chechens residing in Azerbaijan. “The Wahhabi are
already a force capable of exerting serious clout with sociopolitical
life in the country,” political scientist Rafael Gasanov said.
Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies claim that liquidation of a
number of structures in the last ten years or so that shipped young
Azerbaijani abroad for combat training and that recruited mercenaries
for wars abroad. Secret services arrested and extradited numerous
activists of Al-Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Al-Jamaa Al-Islamia,
Islamic Army of the Caucasus, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They
neutralized local organizations of Jeishullah, Hizb-ut-Takhrir,
Al-Qaeda Caucasus, Al-Muvahiddin. Baku offices of a number of foreign
humanitarian organizations were closed as suspected sponsors of
terrorism.
Studying radical Islamization of the Azerbaijani youth, political
scientist Sanan Nuri pins the blame on the growing number of illiterate
and desperate youths, the continuing occupation of 20% of the territory
of Azerbaijan by Armenia, and refugee camp where all sorts of external
forces operate under the guise of humanitarian organizations. Unless
these problems are addressed to and solved, Azerbaijan will remain
a perfect site for radical organizations and sects.

HUNGARIAN AMBASSADOR PRESENTS CREDENTIALS TO ARMENIAN PRESIDENT
Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
April 11, 2006 Tuesday
Moscow, April 11 (MTI) – Hungarian Ambassador Arpad Szekely presented
his credentials to Armenian President Robert Kocharian in Yerevan
on Tuesday.
Szekely, who represents Hungary in the same capacity in Russia, told
MTI that the Armenian president had inquired about the secret of
Hungary’s relatively smooth transition from communism to democracy
in 1990 and the success of all post-communist governments in fully
serving their terms.
Kocharian also showed interest in Hungary’s policy towards its ethnic
minorities and in the situation of ethnic Hungarian communities abroad.

TURKEY SET FOR NEW REFORMS TO STRENGTHEN DEMOCRACY
Agence France Presse — English
April 12, 2006 Wednesday 11:52 AM GMT
Turkey on Wednesday rejected criticism that it had lost its drive to
align with EU norms and announced fresh reforms to further limit the
powers of the military and expand the rights of non-Muslim minorities.
“Some say the reforms have stopped,” Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
told a news conference. “This is not true. We are very determined to
go ahead with the reforms.”
Turkey opened membership talks with the European Union in October,
but the government has been accused since of failing to maintain the
pace of the reforms, turning instead to domestic matters ahead of
parliamentary and presidential elections in 2007.
A particular area of concern has been the new penal code, under which
prominent intellectuals have been brought to trial for criticizing
state institutions or “denigrating the Turkish national identity.”
The new reform plan foresees no further amendments to the penal code,
whose proper implementation, Gul said, requires time and a “change
of mentality” among the judiciary.
The package includes a bill that puts military spending — long a
controversial issue in Turkish politics — under the audit of the
Court of Accounts, which acts on the behalf of parliament.
The government also plans an amendment to the law dealing with courts
martial that will “reduce to a minimum the prosecution of civilians
by military courts,” Gul said.
Another draft, already before parliament, will lift restrictions on
the property rights of non-Muslim religious foundations, an issue on
which the EU has long pressed Ankara.
The bill, however, does not foresee the return to or compensation of
non-Muslim foundations for their properties confiscated by the state
and sold to third parties in the past.
Predominantly Muslim Turkey is home to small groups of Jews and
Christians, mainly Orthodox Greeks and Armenians, most of them
concentrated in Istanbul.
The plan contains no measures of direct concern to the sizeable
Kurdish minority, whose leaders are seeking broader cultural and
political freedoms.
“Reform is an endless process,” Gul said when asked about the package’s
shortcomings. “What matters is the direction one takes and Turkey’s
direction is toward more democracy and the expansion of rights and
freedoms.”
The package also aims to:
– make the funding of political parties more transparent,
– set up a parliamentary political ethics committee,
– step up the combat against corruption,
– introduce an ombudsman system to settle differences between
indsividuals and the state,
– and amend the Settlement Law to end discriminatory measures against
migrant populations, including the Rom.

TURKISH TELEVISION TO AIR FILM ON ARMENIAN KILLINGS
Agence France Presse — English
April 12, 2006 Wednesday 11:52 AM GMT
A private television station will broadcast a controversial movie
on the massacres of Armenians during World War I for the first time
in Turkey where the subject still arouses nationalist feelings,
a spokesman for the channel said Wednesday.
Kanalturk decided to show “Ararat” by Canadian director Atom Egoyan,
an ethnic Armenian, after a survey of viewers revealed that 72 percent
of the participants wanted to see the film, the spokesman said.
“We will show the movie with no cuts or censoring,” he added.
The film’s showing, at prime time on Thursday, will be followed by
a roundtable discussion by Turkish and Armenian intellectuals and
historians on the killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire,
the predecessor of Turkey.
Even though the Turkish government gave the go-ahead for the showing
of the film, which was released in 2002, an Istanbul company was
forced in 2004 to drop plans to screen the movie because of potential
protests that would have required police presence in theatres.
Turks have only recently begun to discuss the Armenian massacres
between 1915 and 1917, one of the most controversial episodes in
Turkish history.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings.
Turkey categorically rejects claims of genocide, arguing that 300,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when the
Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided
with Russian troops invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
Egoyan’s film deals with the estranged members of a contemporary
Armenian family, who are faced with both Turkey’s denial of genocide
and their own individual plight.

US PLANS TO HELP ARMENIA OVERCOME POVERTY IN AGRARIAN SECTOR
by Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
April 12, 2006 Wednesday 03:45 PM EST
U.S. delegation arrived in Yerevan on Wednesday to present a grant
provided by the U.S. administration to Armenia under the Millennium
Challenges programme.
The 235 million U.S. dollar grant will be used to fight poverty in
Armenia’s agrarian sector.
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan received the delegation to thank
the U.S. government for its financial assistance. He believes that
the programme “is very important, because it may help to bridge the
gap in living standards between the capital and rural areas.”
The Chairman of the Appropriation Subcommittee for Foreign Assistance
at the U.S. House of Representatives, Jim Kolbe, said at a news
conference that the South Caucasus is the region that has a bright
future and may develop successfully if there is peace between its
countries.
He said the U.S. would not have started the programme, had it been
not confident of Armenia’s committment to free and fair parliamentary
elections next year and presidential elections in 2008, Kolbe said.
The U.S. will closely watch the implmentation of the programme and
reforms in Armenia, Millennium Challenges Executive Director John
Danilovich said.

BEST BETS TONIGHT
By Free Press News Services
London Free Press, Ontario, Canada
April 12 2006
Must-see
Human Edge: 10 p.m., TVO. Human Edge presents the world premiere of
The Armenian Genocide. Written, produced and directed by Emmy-winning
filmmaker Andrew Goldberg, the documentary explores the 1915-1923
genocide when more than a million Armenians perished, most under the
rule of the Ottoman Empire. It will be preceded at 8 p.m. by a panel
discussion on TVO’s Studio 2.

MISS IRAQ FLEES A JOB THAT CALLS FOR COURAGE MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY
>From Daniel McGrory in Baghdad
The Times
April 13, 2006
IT IS proving as hard to find a beauty queen as it is to find a prime
minister in Iraq.
Exhausted by the time their politicians are taking to agree on a
leader, the country thought it had at least succeeded in choosing a
Miss Iraq.
But last night the people’s choice — Tamar Goregian, 23, a blonde
student with photogenic pout — was in hiding in neighbouring Jordan,
having hastily renounced her crown after death threats from Islamic
extremists.
Only six days ago she was revelling in her victory, blinking back
tears of joy as she told admirers crammed into a Baghdad nightclub
that “maybe beauty is the final step to end the violence here and
preach peace after all”.
Organisers had hoped that her appearance at the Miss Universe contest
in Los Angeles in July would show the world a different image of
Iraq. By yesterday they were searching for a replacement after
fundamentalists denounced Miss Goregian, an Armenian Christian, as
“the Queen of Infidels”. The two runners-up, both Muslim, swiftly
declined the crown.
Last night it was left to the fourth-placed contestant, Silva Sahagian,
23, another Christian, to assume the mantle. “Our politicians should
have more to worry about than whether Miss Iraq should go to America,”
she said. “I cannot believe the extremists would do anything to a
beauty queen.” A civil engineering student in Baghdad, she added:
“I want to show the world Iraq has beauty and education and talent
instead of just bloodshed.”
Staging the world’s most dangerous beauty pageant proved tricky from
the start. Merely to visit a nightclub is to invite kidnapping or
worse. The event was held in secret to avoid prying eyes, and nine
of the twenty finalists got cold feet on the day of the contest and
dropped out.
To avoid offending sensibilities any further, contestants were
requested to wrap a sarong over their one-piece bathing suits as they
paraded for the judges. But in a nod to democracy, the audience was
allowed to vote for the winner.
The organiser, who was too afraid to give his name, said: “We have
no hard feelings towards Tamar Goregian. She couldn’t handle it and
is frightened for her family. She just sent us an e-mail and ran.”
Miss Sahagian, who has shoulder-length auburn hair and hazel eyes
and chose an all-pink outfit for the contest, insists that her
fellow contestants were professional women and not “airheads”. Their
traditional mantra about ” wanting to do their part for world peace”
resonates in Baghdad.
Yesterday brought the usual catalogue of mayhem. A car bomb killed
at least 26 people and injured 70 outside a Shia mosque north of
Baghdad. The explosion in Howaydir was the latest in a wave of attacks
against Iraq’s Shia majority.
Three other car bombs around the country killed eight people. Gunmen
killed three government officials as the Interior Minister admitted
that death squads are operating among Iraq’s security forces. Two US
soldiers died after an attack on their vehicle, bringing the number
killed already this month to thirty-three — two more than in the
whole of March.
Iraq’s parliament, meanwhile, announced plans to meet next week in
an effort to break a three-month impasse over who should be prime
minister. The majority Shia parties had promised a resolution by
yesterday over the fate of Ibrahim Jaafari — the embattled incumbent,
who is bitterly opposed by the Sunni and Kurdish factions — but now
say they need more time.
It remains to be seen whether Mr Jaafari lasts longer in office than
the latest Miss Iraq.

OSKANIAN BRIEFED TO U.S. CONGRESSMEN ON KARABAKH SETTLEMENT PROCESS
PanARMENIAN.Net
12.04.2006 23:03 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian
met with U.S. Congressmen Jim Kolbe and Scott Garrett as well as MCC
Chief Executive Officer John Danilovich, reported RA MFA press office.
The interlocutors discussed the agenda of the Armenian-American
relations, specifically the Millennium Challenge Compact. Assessing
highly the assistance rendered to Armenia since its independence the
parties noted the importance of transparent spending of the funds
allocated by the MCC, public awareness and adherence of the Armenian
government to the democracy principles. Besides, they referred to
some regional issues including the Armenia-Iran and Armenia-Turkey
relations. By the guests’ request Vartan Oskanian briefed on the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement process.

ARMENIAN-POLISH ASSOCIATION FORMED IN POLAND
PanARMENIAN.Net
12.04.2006 23:08 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ An Armenian-Polish Association was formed in
Poland, Association Chairperson, Armenian language tutor of the
Warsaw University Margarita Yeremyan-Wozniakowska told PanARMENIAN.Net
reporter in Poland. In her words, Armenians have for a long time lived
in Poland but they have not formed a community yet. Presently there
are some unsettled problems mostly connected with the financial state
of the Association. According to Yeremyan-Wozniakowska, the membership
fee amounting in 20 zlotys cannot solve even the tiniest problems. “We
hope for grants,” she said noting that a slide show on the Armenian
Genocide will be the first event organized by the Association.
The event will take place in the Center of Culture in Warsaw April 24.